1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a storage apparatus and a method for performing fault recovery of the storage apparatus which enable to reduce a load on a fibre channel (FC) and perform a recovery rapidly in a case of a route anomaly by means of another network (such as Ethernet (registered trademark) or the like) without using an interface (I/F) of the fibre channel which is a function of the fibre channel in the storage apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a fabric connection, when some sort of anomaly occurs in a loop at the side of a device enclosure (DE), and a control module (CM) issues a LIP (Loop Initialization Primitive) to recover the loop (initialize the loop), it is necessary to send a command for issuing the LIP, to a fibre channel switch (FC-SW) via a fibre channel from the control module.
Moreover, when the control module cancels the command issued to a hard disk (HDD) in the device enclosure due to some sort of reason, it is necessary to issue the command to the HDD, or issue the LIP to the loop of the HDD. However, when a fibre channel connection between the control module and the fibre channel switch is disconnected and the command cannot be sent, it is not possible to recover the loop which has become abnormal.
When the above described state has been occurred, conventionally there is only methods in which another control module detects the loop anomaly and sends the command of issuing the LIP, or a communication between the control module and the control module (CM-CM communication) is used to request another control module to send the command of issuing the LIP.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional example. In FIG. 6, a storage apparatus includes control modules (CM#0-CM#3) 12, a front end router (FRT) 13, a back end router (BRT) 21, and device enclosures (DE#00-DE#07) 31 are provided. Here, by way of example, the figure shows the case where the anomaly (loop anomaly) has occurred in the loop at the side of the device enclosures 31 #00 and #01 and the fibre channel switch (here, the back end router 21), and the case where the fibre channel connection between the control module 12 #1 and the fibre channel switch (here, the back end router 21) has been disconnected (path anomaly). It should be noted that the side of the device enclosures 31 (#00 and #01) is connected in a loop via a FC interface (FC I/F). The communication between the control module and the control module (CM-CM communication) is performed using the front end router 13.
Additionally, there has been a conventional disk array device which reads information on a fault from a memory device and transfers the information to a management terminal to manage the fault information efficiently (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-71196). However, this disk array device only obtains the fault information, and the issuing of the LIP has not been described therein.
The above-described conventional techniques have problems as follows.
When another control module detects the loop anomaly and sends the command of issuing the LIP, it takes time for another control module 12 to detect the loop anomaly. Additionally, when another control module 12 is not accessing the loop, another control module 12 cannot detect the anomaly and issue the LIP.
When the communication between the control module and the control module (CM-CM communication) is used to request another control module to send the command of issuing the LIP, a process becomes complex in which it is necessary to confirm which control module 12 is connected to the loop, whether the connection between the control module 12 and the fibre channel switch is not disconnected, and the like. Additionally, when the request for issuing the LIP is sent to all of the control modules 12, a load is imposed on a fabric (here, the back end router 21) by issuing the LIP in a multiple fashion, which may become a cause of delay in other processes.